At eleven, “Chop Shots!”
At eleven thirty, “Triangles!”
Through portholes wiped in the fogged-up windows of the weight room, the varsity football players watch the girls, jaws hanging slack and stupefied. To them, and the student body at large, there’s something cultish and unsettling about the varsity girls field hockey team. Their devotion, their focus, their unquestioning commitment to Coach and to one another. For the duration of their season, their squad is impenetrable.
It should be said that West Essex’s football team has not made it to states in over a decade. Their last championship banner hangs dusty and faded from the gymnasium rafters. Yet it never strikes the boys as odd that they still dominate the fall pep rally, always announced last by the principal. The boys don’t question if they’ve actually earned the bleacher-stomping applause that beckons them, dressed in their jerseys and jeans, to burst through banners of butcher paper. Their arms simply lift in V shapes at varying intervals, summoning the student body to their feet. A reflex.
Boys default to kings. Their sovereign right to rule is never questioned.
The football players wait to be noticed, eager for their gaze to have some kind of effect on the field hockey girls, preferably embarrassment. That the girls never do annoys them, and eventually, they retreat from the windows. A silent acknowledgment that this is one kingdom beyond their reach.
This is why the field hockey girls would live on this field forever if they could. This blessed rectangle where their worth is wholly quantifiable, statistical, analytic black and white. How incredibly freeing it is to live a few hours each day where they don’t worry about being beautiful or sweet or modest or smart or funny or feminine. The only thing required of them here is to play their absolute best.
And so, on this day, one girl always pukes.
One girl always cries.
One girl always falls.
But they all keep going. Because being a Wildcat means everything.
At noon Coach blows his whistle one final time. The girls—cheeks mottled, drenched in sweat, muscles twitching, stomachs sour, chests heaving—fall to their knees and look around at one another in awe. It seems almost cruel that not every girl who survived this will make the team.
But that’s how it is. Winners and losers.
They rise on wobbly legs, silently collect their belongings from the sidelines, and file from the field out to the paved cul-de-sac ringing the stately front of West Essex Upper School, turf cleats clicking atop the pavement. There, underneath the flag, they stand shoulder to shoulder, hearts paused in their chests, as Coach reads the names of his chosen ones.
* * *
In exactly twenty-four hours, this brand-new Wildcats team will take to the field for their first official scrimmage of the season, against the Oak Knolls Bulldogs. Scrimmages typically don’t mean shit, but it was Oak Knolls who beat them at states last year. It was the first time the Wildcats had lost a championship since Coach arrived at West Essex six years ago. And the girls would love nothing more than to start their new season by whooping some serious Bulldog ass. For Coach as much as for themselves.
Maybe more.
The newest members joining this team—plucked either from the JV squad, like Grace, or the freshman team, and one lucky eighth grader named Luci—are green, but their inexperience may well be an asset. The girls who played varsity last season each still nurse a secret wound, the thinnest of scabs capping a mountain of scar tissue. Mel, for not stepping up. Phoebe, for lying. Ali, for losing her head. Kearson, for treason.
The only way the Wildcats will manage a win tomorrow is if all the varsity players—new and returning—come together and bond as a team. They must believe with their whole hearts that they’re in this together. Know without question that they’ll have one another’s backs until the final whistle. As Coach says, Team first, always.
That’s why they lost last season. That’s what broke them.
Luckily, there’s a tradition for this, too. A secret celebration that will take place tonight on this very field. It is the single facet of being a Wildcat that belongs entirely to the girls.
At least, that’s how it used to be.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 26
12:27 P.M.
LUCI
Bite down as hard as you can.”
Luci Capurro sinks her teeth into a perforated metal tray packed with pink clay. The overflow pushes through the tiny holes and streamers of orthodontic Play-Doh quickly fill the empty spaces inside her mouth. Luci gags, but thankfully the other girls—her new teammates—don’t notice.
A celebration is brewing across the classroom.
Desks are bulldozed into corners. A platter of still-warm bagels and tubs of cream cheese carried away. A cooler with mini bottles of orange juice dragged across the linoleum. Someone turns up the volume on a cell phone and drops it into an empty plastic Solo cup. The vibrating plastic warbles the lyrics incomprehensibly, but it was the song of this summer. Everyone already knows the words.
As quickly as the dance floor appears it is filled by returning players. Luci identifies them as such by the varsity Wildcat gear they already possess. Dropped duffel bags from different regional tournaments. T-shirts boasting championships won before Luci moved to this town, boxy unisex styles snipped into more flattering silhouettes, like loose window dressings for their sport bras.
Though damp with sweat, they happily drape themselves onto each other and dance, paw, pinch, prune, grind, hip check. They seem so much older. Practically a different species of girl. The intimacy between them makes Luci feel like a creeper for staring.
But she is not the only one.
A smaller group of girls stands pressed against a table of computers, the dim monitors a contrast to their bright, adoring smiles. They must be the new players promoted from last season’s freshman and JV teams, Luci decides. The veteran players shimmy over and take their hands. There is not a sneaker squeak of resistance. Even the shy ones close their eyes and dance.
No one notices Luci. It is not a slight. Luci is the only incoming freshman—technically still an eighth grader until Monday—to have made varsity. She is grateful that the dental tech’s body mostly shields her from view, grateful she could point to the tray in her mouth if she were seen and beckoned to the dance floor. At this moment Luci doesn’t have the courage to join in the fun. It took every last drop she had to bring her this far.
“And open.” The dental tech pokes inside her mouth with his bitter rubber-gloved hand, scooping out the excess clay with his fingers and then checking the fit. “Okay, Luci, this looks good. Go ahead and close again. No talking for five minutes while the mold sets.”
The song ends but the girls continue the beat, drumming on desks and walls, stomping their feet on the floor. The tech rolls his eyes and flings his used gloves into the trash. No one notices or cares that he’s annoyed. The beat gets faster, building, blurring, until an impromptu cheer suddenly breaks out and nineteen teenage girls scream-sing the Wildcat fight song.
Luci hasn’t memorized the words yet. It didn’t feel particularly pressing. She wasn’t making the team.
What a difference an hour makes.
Luci threads some stray wisps of hair behind her ears. Lowers her chin to her chest. Listens close.
We are the Wildcats, the navy blue and white,